


Powerless

by sibley (ferns)



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Autistic Parker (Leverage), F/M, Multi, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 03:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20789633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Eliot Spencer, who has gone toe-to-toe with some of the toughest metahumans out there and somehow made it out alive despite not having records of an active metagene. Alec Hardison, who technically used a variety of aliases, who’d stolen god knows how much money without so much as a hint of metahuman powers to his name. Parker, who could steal anything in the world and practically had, and who’d done it while completely without any superpowers.All people who worked alone, and all people who displayed minimal or zero metahuman abilities.





	Powerless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DisabledNicoDiAngelo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisabledNicoDiAngelo/gifts), [montivagant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/montivagant/gifts).

> I got a prompt from Urs relating to the Leverage crew plus superpowers, and even though I filled it out differently the idea wouldn't really leave my head, so... here's a modified version of that one, where I a) gave everyone powers and b) had those powers be much more "traditional" for the group. Sophie's and Hardison's are the only ones I kept the same. Talking to Isa about Leverage/DC crossovers also helped out a lot. Thanks for getting me back on my Leverage kick, you two. 
> 
> [**CW:** this fic contains nongraphic references to child abuse, self-destructive behaviors, ableism, and child death, as well as fairly canon-typical violence (though it's honestly on the lighter side) including attempted murder.]

Nate was never a superhero. Not really.

When he was a younger man he might have jumped at the opportunity to be called one. He’d never been anything more than a small-time vigilante, barely a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things, and only ever for about two years. He’d eventually figured out that a better use of his time that didn’t include the possibility of him getting his ass handed to him every single night and probably narrowed it down to only twice a year or so would be to become an insurance investigator, and that had been that.

At IYS, he meets Sterling, and they become friends in a way Nate’s never really had with anybody else. Growing up with a plan to become a priest doesn’t give one many close childhood friends. Especially not any friends that are _ also _ your rivals. They’d been some of the only two non-metahumans working as insurance investigators for IYS. Of _ course _they were going to butt heads on occasion. It had never really been anything serious at the time, not how Nate would look back on it later. 

He’d been happy, with Maggie and Sam, and secure in his rivalry with Sterling and in his job. He’d told her about his past, about what an idiot he’d been when he was young, and she’d laughed and patted his shoulder and told him that she was glad he hadn’t accidentally splattered his brains all over the pavement the first time he jumped off a roof. He’d decided that he’d never tell Sam about it, too afraid that he’d follow his example one day and end up dead.

As it turned out, he hadn’t needed to worry about Sam tracing his steps when he was older.

Everything was a blur after that. Nothing else even mattered. On more than one occasion, in the haze of grief and alcohol and grief and pain and grief, he’d considered putting that ridiculous costume back on. Tracking down the people who’d let him down. Who’d let Sam die. And seeing how long you had to beat someone’s face in before it turned into a bloody pulp.

He never does it, no matter how much he wants to. Maggie knows about it, he’s sure she does. Maybe that’s a part of why she leaves. Not that he blames her. He’d leave him too. Of course he would. But without her the haze just gets thicker and the world keeps on spinning out of his control and he knows there’s no chance of getting that control back. Not even if he was the best superhero in the world.

And then Victor Dubenich approaches him with an offer.

Nate knows all the names, of course. He’s chased them all. But it wasn’t just when he was Nate Ford, insurance investigator, even if he ran into all of them later down the road when he was exactly that. First it had been while he was Nate Ford, part-time small fry vigilante due to a temporary lapse in judgement who couldn’t come up with a cool enough name to announce his presence to the world. He doubted any of them even remembered him as a “superhero.” And Dubenich clearly had a type.

Eliot Spencer, who has gone toe-to-toe with some of the toughest metahumans out there and somehow made it out alive despite not having records of an active metagene. Alec Hardison, who technically used a variety of aliases, who’d stolen god knows how much money without so much as a hint of metahuman powers to his name. Parker, who could steal anything in the world and practically had, and who’d done it while completely without any superpowers.

All people who worked alone, and all people who displayed minimal or zero metahuman abilities. Just like Nate himself. It’s a good team, and honestly Nate doesn’t doubt that they’d break their rule of being solo acts for the price Dubenich offered. But the money’s not enough to draw him in. Not until Dubenich says that he’s going up against someone working with IYS. 

Then anything is worth it.

* * *

It goes off without a hitch. The three of them bitch at each other and at him, but that’s all. No casualties. No injuries. They get what they came for and get out without being caught. That’s the best Nate can ask for. The whole time, just to make it through, he repeats to himself that this is worth it. That when it’s done he can rest easy knowing that he never has to see any of these people ever again. That he’s successfully fucked over IYS Insurance. 

(Deep down, though, he knows that it’ll never be enough. He’s gotten this taste of revenge. But he’ll never stop wanting to stick it to them over and over and over again, now that he’s already done it once and gotten away with it.)

And then, suddenly, things go wrong. The _ job- _ that’s all it is, just another job, just like being an insurance investigator was, just like being a father was-goes wrong. Because it was a _ setup, _ because Dubenich was playing them the whole time, and oh Nate is going to take him _ down _ for that. Suddenly he doesn’t mind that he’s still working with these three people who he knows can’t stand him or each other, because they’re all united with one common goal in mind; to make Dubenich _ burn. _

Getting Sophie is the obvious next step. She’s not like them. She’s technically out of the game. While she tends to work alone, she plays well with others when she’s given the opportunity to do so. Nate knows her, even if it’s just from the two of them chasing each other up and down the world. Perhaps most importantly, unlike the rest of them, she’s a metahuman.

Nate’s never seen her use her abilities, or at least he doesn’t think he has. He knows she uses them to blend into a crowd. To vanish into a sea of faces. He doesn’t know how it works, but he knows how _ she _works. Dubenich doesn’t. That gives him the edge.

That gives _ them _the edge.

In the end, it’s not a one-time thing. Because of course it’s not.

* * *

Eliot Spencer grew up with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

When he was little, his father brought him to the doctor every week, complaining about all the money he spent there when his son was _ fine, really. _The doctors suspected abuse, not that Eliot realized it at the time, but they never had any way of proving it. He barely seemed to have the scrapes common with other boys his age, and he was constantly complaining of injuries that were gone as fast as they showed up and seemed to have no cause.

Nobody seemed to notice that the day his dad fell off a ladder and broke his leg Eliot was the one who couldn’t walk for a week. Nobody seemed to notice that when the bullies in his little town picked on the boy who spent his time on his belly in the dirt looking at bugs, Eliot was the one walking around with a black eye. Nobody seemed to notice that when his neighbor got pregnant, Eliot was the one who threw up every morning. Nobody seemed to notice that whenever something happened, it always seemed to find its way back to Eliot.

By the time he was fifteen, he’d learned to control it well enough. He’d figured out that he could block out the rest of the world by focusing on himself. On the intactness of his skin, which never seemed to scar unless he forced it to. On the solidity of the ground beneath his feet. And he’d learned that it only worked with _ physical _pain. By the time he was eighteen, he had it down to a science, and he’d figured out that not only could he accept pain, he could take it away and redirect it elsewhere. Not much, or he’d get dizzy and the world would briefly go black. But he could make the tough guys in his town feel their own punches, and that was enough.

The army changed that.

Damien Moreau changed it even more.

Moreau was a meta. A mind controller, not a mind reader. Nothing too extravagant. He could only nudge people in the right direction, not push them all the way there. He tested it out on Eliot a few times, to prove that he would know if he ever used it on him for _ real. _That was the worst part, really. Knowing that he couldn’t live with the comforting lie that Moreau had forced him to do everything he’d ever done for him.

Some people expected-still expect, to be honest-him to have flashy powers. Lots of muscle for hire has super-strength or durability or some combination of the above. Eliot didn’t. He never has. He just heals fast and takes the pain of others. After Moreau, Eliot stopped advertising that he could even do that much. He didn’t need any more blood on his hands. There was already too much for him to ever be clean of it.

None of Ford’s people, including Ford himself, know that he has powers. (He doesn’t like calling them that, like they’re a gift. _ Superheroes _ call them that. He’s not a fucking superhero.) He’d prefer to keep it that way. Keep that secret locked up tight. Heal normally. Feel nothing that isn’t his own. Not even _ think _about channeling anything back, trapping someone in a loop, making them break into pieces from the pain. Keep everything the way it is.

Of _ course _ he notices what the rest of Ford’s people (really, though, they’re just as much Eliot’s people as they are his) can do. Sophie doesn’t even make an effort to hide it. She’s proud of her ability and uses it freely. The only time she _ doesn’t _ is when she’s trying to spite Ford for some reason or another. To be fair, Parker’s probably not making an effort to hide it either. She just assumes that what she can do is something _ anybody _can do. And Hardison… well, Eliot goes back and forth on whether or not he’s got powers at all.

* * *

Hardison resents the implication that he’s a technopath.

It makes it sound like he’s as cool as he is because he was born with it, not through practice and trial and error. Sure, he’s got a natural knack for coding and a freakishly good memory, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have to work hard. Technopaths are people like stupid _ Cha0s _who think they’re hot shit because they can turn a computer on by winking, or something.

But that doesn’t mean he’s _ powerless. _ Or, well, it doesn’t mean he’s not a metahuman. He’s not powerless _ regardless _of superpowers. Yeah. See, the thing about technopaths is that it’s only really a one way street. You deliver the order, and then the machine carries it out. Snap your fingers and the power goes out, click your tongue and an airplane shuts down mid-flight. Shit like that. What Hardison can do goes beyond that. If technopathy is a one way street, then Hardison’s going in the wrong direction.

Machines have always talked to him. Faceless masses stretching out toward infinity all chattering to him in their synchronized voices. Hardison had been nine years old when he first put into words that the things around him spoke to him and that he couldn’t speak back. He’d been thirteen when he learned that even if he couldn’t talk back like a technopath would, he could talk back like a hacker would, and he’d spent the night before his Bar Mitzvah tiptoeing around telling his nana what he wanted to do when he grew up (though of course she figured it all out anyway).

At first he’d wanted to be a superhero.

There were all sorts of superheroes who used technology to fight crime. There were even hackers who could do it! Granted, they were relatively new on the scene, and personally Hardison thought that he could easily outclass them all despite being around ten years their junior in the best case scenario, but they were _ something. _They were people to look up to.

But superheroes frowned on things like using foreign money that you stole to pay your nana’s medical bills. They didn’t like it when kids used their memory for coding to give everyone in their class who’d ever been bullied an automatic _ A+, _much less when they failed the bullies, or exposed their teachers for running shady shit out of their homerooms. Superheroes thought that it was morally wrong to try to take back the things that the world had taken away from you and your family and everybody else.

So Hardison tried to become a super_villain _instead.

He’d tested out a few different identities for himself, but none of them really stuck. The machines sometimes had suggestions, and while that was kind of the only time they were ever useful on that front none of them were particularly good ideas. Hardison pored over the idea of fighting superheroes, trying to find the ones that would be his perfect nemesis, and it never really panned out. He got way more money working quietly than he did while trying to strike up a rivalry with the latest cape on the scene trying to make a name for themselves. And when he was considered a garden variety hacker, few suspected that he had powers. Win-win, right?

Nate _ definitely _ didn’t know, which was fine. Eliot probably knew, which was also fine. Sophie definitely _ did _ know, because she could read people like a book, which was, again, totally fine. It didn’t really matter if they knew or not, his work would stay the same, though sometimes he considered charging more considering that he _ could _ pretty easily pass for a telekinetic. Yeah, it didn’t matter if _ they _ knew. But Parker… He wanted her to know that he _ got _it. What she could do. That was the best way to put it.

* * *

Parker grew up invisible.

It’s not her _ power, _ of course. Archie always said that she had power, but not like him. _ He _was the one who could turn invisible, not her. But that doesn’t matter. Because Parker is Parker. And Parker knows that she grew up invisible.

She doesn’t remember a lot of what happened. Just bits and pieces. Archie wanted her to grow out of an attachment like Bunny, because he didn’t understand that Bunny was her only friend. He didn’t understand that Bunny kept the memories for her. She didn’t want them, so Bunny took them. Or at least that’s how she’d viewed it when she was a child. Less so now. But close enough.

The parts that she did remember made her glad she was invisible. Glad that she’d found herself on her own so quickly and realized fast how her talents worked. Parker knew that she was different from most people, but that didn’t mean she could _ do _ anything that normal people couldn’t do. When she slid down buildings and broke glass with her bare hands and crept through ventilation shafts, that wasn’t her doing anything _ special. _

Archie said it was special. Archie said that _ she _was special. That she was the most perfect thief he’d ever met, and the only one that he’d ever made. He’d called her words that she’d heard before-autistic, hyperactive, in need of a teacher-and ones that she hadn’t-density shifter, metahuman, brilliant. He’d made her feel special and he’d made her the perfect thief and she’d always owe him everything for that even if there were… other things. The family things.

Archie had been the one to encourage her to be a supervillain. A _ gentlemanly _ one like him, of course. He hadn’t been one for years, even back when they first met, and it had all been abroad in Europe, but he had most _ certainly _been one, and it was the source of some of his fondest memories. And if Parker was to be his perfect thief, then she had to follow in his footsteps exactly. Find a superhero to do battle with, perhaps flirt with them a little on the side, and so on and so forth. He’d told her all about the glory days. Back when heroes were heroes and villains were villains. 

But Parker didn’t _ want _ to be a supervillain. Or a _ villain, _period. She wanted to be a thief, because that’s what she was and what she’d always been, and she was damn good at it, too. So that’s what she did, under Archie’s tutelage and with her own acquired skills. She became the best damn thief the world had ever seen and hoped that it would be enough to convince Archie that she didn’t need to do everything he’d done to be his successor.

Even though he still called her his perfect thief, it never seemed to be.

Oddly enough, there never seemed to be any question of whether she was the right woman for the job when she was with Nate and his people. Her people. Her Nate and her Sophie and particularly her Eliot and her Hardison. They questioned _ her _ sometimes. But not her skills. It was weird that they acted like she could do things that they couldn’t, since it’s not like she was a metahuman or anything. She just had talents, like making herself lighter or heavier or just a little harder to hit. (Using those was cheating, though. Kind of. It made things less challenging and less _ fun, _and to Parker, that was the important thing.) That was all.

Everyone else in the group, on the team, has talents, too. Hardison is so good with computers it’s like sometimes he’s speaking a whole different language with his fingers. Eliot can move fast and hit hard just like Parker can, only he directs it at bad people instead of at safes he’s trying to crack. Nate can keep all of them in line and sometimes it feels like he knows things she’s going to do before she does them. And Sophie… Parker admires Sophie. It feels like Sophie can do everything Parker _ can’t. _

* * *

Sophie Deveraux was born with a name and a face that did not belong to her.

It took her years before she understood what had happened. That she had been born incorrect and had to fix it. And it took her a few years after that to understand that there was something she could actually do about it. It had started young, of course. She was only five when she confusedly voiced the assumption that she had green eyes, only for her mother to pick her up, tug at her eyelid slightly, and, buffudled, say that she must have been wrong, because of course those eyes were green. 

But it also started small, with little things like that. The biggest was when she was twelve, seven years after that first incident, when she planted her feet firmly on the ground and loudly announced that she was most certainly _ not _ her mother’s precious baby boy. It had been stronger than changing her eyes had been, years of pent-up conviction and the sheer _ truth _ of it all pushing her power outward. Much later, Sophie would recognize that nothing had really changed for _ her. _It merely helped to convince everyone else of her own truths (and later, that same ability would help her to convince everyone of her lies).

Sophie was only one of a long line of names. Katherine, Annie, Grace, Christine, Charlotte, and all the others. It was also, however, one that she was particularly fond of, and it was one that she had used during some of the best parts of her life, so it was only fitting that she use it now, too. It sounded so much _ better _coming from Nate’s mouth than any of the other voices. She gave things to the names she used, and Sophie was really one of the few that gave anything of any worth back, and that was that.

Sophie positively _ adored _the idea of being a supervillain.

Actually being considered evil? Committing acts rungs above thefts and robberies and frauds and forgeries? Oh, no, no. That had never been for her. But the idea of being famous on the greatest stage there was, with the people who perhaps understood style the most out of anybody else? The thrill of the chase, even though she’d experienced disappointingly little of it so far? That was positively wonderful. It was risky, and the stakes were high, and the entire world was her stage. Just how Sophie liked it.

Tragically, it never stuck. She had a few whirlwind chases with an insurance investigator, of all people, and she tangled with a handful of genuine superheroes on three notable occasions, but really, that was all. She made contacts in the villain community that she kept up for old times’ sake, and she used them when she had to, but that and her supervillain name (technically it was names, plural. Sophie was never particularly decisive. It’s part of why she never told Nate her real name, the one that had been on her birth certificate since she was twelve years old. At some point, it had stopped being real, just another alias in a long line of them) were really the only ties to that career she had left.

Despite the fact that they hadn’t really made the cut on the supervillain scene, Sophie loved her powers. They didn’t make her who she was. If she didn’t have them-and the times when she’d been separated from them had been quite the experiences-she would still be Sophie Devereaux, the best damn actress in the world, and the hundred other people she’d been. But that didn’t mean they weren’t a part of her. She most certainly didn’t need her hand to be a grifter, but she would miss it if it was gone.

It’s also cute how flustered Nate gets when she uses them. He’s not used to working around metahumans in close quarters like this, even though he surely wrangled plenty back when he was still working for IYS and probably partnered up with a few. Every time she changes something, from her hair color to the structure of her hands, he turns bright red and looks away like he just caught her changing. It’s funny more than anything.

One would think he’d be used to it, considering he’s working with an all-metahuman team, but evidently he hasn’t pieced that bit out yet. That’s something Sophie is absolutely _ fascinated _by. He’ll be frustrated that she didn’t tell him once he realizes that she knew the minute she laid eyes on the whole group, but it’s so much more fun if she doesn’t tell him. The reveal will be so much more dramatic that way.

* * *

Nate doesn’t know when he first realizes that Eliot’s got powers. Maybe it’s when the pain from a gunshot wound lessens, and it’s Eliot who suddenly has trouble breathing. Maybe it’s when he sees him cut his finger, distracted from the task of cutting vegetables by an attack from behind, and realizes that despite the blood he’s sure he saw, there’s no real cut there at all. Maybe it’s when he notices that there are barely any scars on Eliot’s body. His arms, his collarbone, his face.

But the knowledge settles in fully after Moreau. When Eliot, alive but barely able to stand and decorated with half a dozen quickly-healing gunshot wounds, stumbles out after him. Nate knows what he must have done in there and he knows that Eliot would be dead if he’d really been shot so many times. There’s no time to linger on it. Moreau is fleeing, and the Italian needs medical attention, and Nate needs to make sure everyone else is okay. Eliot knows he knows now. Nate’s put the pieces together. And that’s enough.

He doesn’t even need to ask why Eliot accepted the gunshot wounds for himself when it was all over. He must be in tremendous pain. Nate supposes that’s the point. He tries to offer _ some _small comfort while he makes sure the Italian doesn’t bleed to death, but Eliot isn’t even paying attention to him, eyes fixed on where Moreau’s plane is disappearing into the sky.

Later, Nate sees Parker and Hardison press against him, Hardison babbling on about something or another that Eliot would usually pretend to be annoyed with him about and Parker rubbing her shoulder against his and providing pressure like a cat would. Sophie watches him from across the room. Nate does, too. There’ll be time to talk about this later. Won’t there?

Conversely, Nate’s always known about Sophie’s powers. She’s a proud metahuman. He’s never noticed the differences in her appearance the way others seem to, however, even though he knows they’re happening. Like a video caught between two frames. It’s something about lying and telling the truth, but he doesn’t find that out until they’re in San Lorenzo together. They’re both a little out of it, and she says something about how she can make anyone believe a lie if she can convince them it’s the truth, and she’s never been able to convince him. Her body changes for truth. Other people think it changes for lies. Or something like that.

(it’s not until later, years later, when they’re alone together on a boat off the shore of Cape Cod, that she tells him that he’s known her real name the whole time. _ Your name here. _It’s Sophie. Maybe it always has been and maybe it always will be. But Sophie Devereaux could never be buried, because she’s more a part of her than any of the other names she’s ever used. So what if it’s not the name she chose for herself when she was still learning who she was? It’s still real. He accepts that. It feels like something he should’ve known all along.)

Sophie seems to know something he doesn’t about Hardison and Parker, though. Maybe that’s why she acts like they know her real name. Nate’s studied them for a long time, and he’s almost positive that while Hardison does actually have powers-how could a non-technopath do what he does?-Parker doesn’t. Except that’s a _ huge _ almost, because Parker is _ Parker. _ Nothing she does is a feat of extraordinary _ metahuman _ability. Is it?

Once, he asks her outright if she's secretly a metahuman, and she just looks at him, confused. Hardison laughs and claps him on the back and says that of _ course _she is, but Parker doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t bring it up again.

None of them are hiding explosively powerful abilities from him, and that’s a good thing. There’s a brief adjustment period when he realizes that while Eliot never really said anything about it, he really is one, but that’s all. Something that it takes Nate a long time to accept is that it doesn’t matter, does it? They’re just people with skills. And he knows what those skills are. Metahuman or not. That’s what’s important.

Meaning he’s out of his depth when he has to handle a whole new team made up mostly of metahumans.

Yes, Archie Leach can turn invisible, but for how long? Does it transfer to his clothes? To others? Yes, Cha0s is a technopath, but is there a limit on how far away he can be from something to control it? Does he overexert himself by manipulating multiple machines at once? Is the size of the machine a factor? Yes, Quinn is bulletproof, but does he still feel the impacts? Can he still be damaged by things like electrocution and heat? What about cold? And Maggie…

Maggie’s no metahuman and she never has been, but she doesn’t have to be to throw him hopelessly out of his depth. Maybe that’s good. It keeps enough of their dynamic the same, doesn’t it? Four metahumans and one normal human being (he’d certainly never be so stupid as to call Maggie powerless), not that Dubenich knew about his team’s powers, except maybe for Sophie’s.

They fuck him over once again, just like old times, and Nate can’t bring himself to kill him.

He doesn’t need the gun in his hands to do it. He’s no accomplished fighter like Eliot or Quinn, but he can throw a few punches. He knows how to kill with his hands. But that would be even worse. It would mean Nate would have to live with something that Dubenich doesn’t have to with his disconnected method of killing for revenge.

Nate knows his people will walk away if he kills him. Sophie would go first. Hardison and Parker would go at the same time. Eliot would be last, but only because he knew what it was like. He knows and he wants to act like he doesn’t care, but he does. He cares about them. He cares about getting _ justice. _Not revenge, like Dubenich wanted-wants-on him. Justice. It’s different. It has to be.

Justice is fucking over IYS. Justice is leaving Damien Moreau to rot in San Lorenzo. Justice is what they do. What he does. This is just like that. 

His people are watching. Waiting for him to tell them why he’s making the right choice. Waiting for him to do it while begging him not to even though he can’t hear them. They don’t understand that sometimes it comes to this-or, maybe they do, Eliot absolutely does, but it’s not _ enough. _It’s really never enough. This is what he needs to do.

Nate _ needs _to do this, and he can’t.

He puts the gun down and waits to hear it go off.

And it does, just not at the people he was intending.

Nate had been assuming that one of them would shoot him in the back before they turned their guns on each other and hopefully killed each other somehow. Maybe they would fall off the dam together. A traditional Reichenbach ending for them now that they’d become enemies of each other.

Dubenich gets the gun, and he doesn’t shoot at Nate or at Latimer, not first. He aims the gun unsteadily higher and shoots at the four people watching him from just within range before he pivots on his heel and tries to take Latimer down with him and-

The first shot misses. So does the second, and the third, and Nate turns around, intent on rushing back over there and shoving them off the little cliff himself. It turns out that he doesn’t have to, as the two of them fall together, another gunshot ringing out before he sees them hit the water. Good. For trying to kill his team, he _ would _have beaten them worse. Somehow he doesn’t doubt that he’d go that far for them the way he couldn’t for his father, and never has he wanted to be a metahuman more than when he realized he couldn’t be there to shield them.

They rush him when he gets back. Sophie hugs him, tight, and Hardison shakes his head over and over again as he clutches at Nate’s arm, and Parker stands back away from them just far enough that she isn’t touching but certainly no farther, and Eliot takes his hand and for a moment Nate feels Dubenich and Latimer’s respective pains. But only for a moment. Then it all drips out of him and Eliot gives it back to its owners and shoulders the pain that belongs to Nate alone and nods to him. Nate is sure that he’ll always understand that the most.

* * *

The decision to make Parker his successor is the easiest one Nate’s made in a long time.

She’s smart and flexible-literally and figuratively-and when she’s with her crew she knows when to fall back and regroup. She’s just about fearless and she’s far cleverer than he ever was, and while she’s no Eliot she’s no slouch in a fight. Hardison can’t lead them, he’s fine on his own and he can multitask like a pro but he’s at his best when he’s by himself, safely away from the damage. Eliot doesn’t _ want _to lead them and he couldn’t anyway. He’d be too overwhelmed. Unable to step back and look at this from a different angle like Parker can. And finding someone new is out of the question.

Yeah. Parker’s _ perfect. _ Sure, she’s inexperienced in actually _ leading _ them, but that’s okay, because she’ll have Eliot and Hardison with her. And maybe Sophie, if he manages to fuck this up. If he has to leave without her… well, he doesn’t know if he’ll _ live, _ but at least the team probably will. With Parker as the head of the snake they’ll be able to do anything. Besides, there’s always the _ other _people running around the world. They could use someone like Parker to keep them in line.

Sterling, the CIA, IYS, the FBI. None of them know about the superpowers Parker and Eliot and Hardison have, even if they’re certainly more than aware of Sophie’s. They’ve probably been wondering how they made it this far without them, especially considering how _ open _ Sterling has become about his _ own _ powers, which Nate only found out about during the _ Ma Mystere _ incident. Lots of living lie detectors in the insurance business, as it turned out. (It would have been nice to know back while they’d been working together. Maybe then Nate could’ve really hit him where it hurt somehow.)

“Parker, you don’t let feelings get in the way. You rotate problems,” he tells her, when they’re alone tracing over a map of the Pallogen building together. Trying to work out the perfect con for the Portland Police Department and Sterling and Interpol and everyone. And it’s the truth. It’s why he’s chosen her, even if she doesn’t quite know it yet. “Security, timelines, your marks… you spin them until they click. I trust your judgement and how you think.”

Later on, he sees her leaning against Hardison’s shoulder, feet in Eliot’s lap as she makes Hardison translate for the taser in her hand despite him repeating that simple-ish machines like tasers don’t have a lot to say. Eliot pats her leg, and Nate can tell from the way her stance shifts that he just straightened out the kink in her neck and took it on for himself.

She smiles at back at Eliot, free fingers tracing down to hold Hardison’s hand, and he knows that this is right. Eliot will protect them, Hardison will guide them, Parker will lead them. Powers or not. Most likely _ not, _ since Parker always said that using them for cons and things was cheating unless you were a grifter, which meant it was your _ job _ to lie so it _ couldn’t _have been cheating. That would make her an even better leader. Nate knew from many, many years of experience that someone who didn’t appear to have powers tended to be underestimated.

Sophie hugs him briefly from behind and then drifts over to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of orange soda so she can get to that fancy salad she left in there earlier. Her hair changes color slightly in the light when she huffs something under her breath about needing to try something new for Macbeth, maybe blond with blue eyes, maybe cutting her hair shorter. She _ says _she’s confident in how the con will play out, even if they have a few wildcards floating around, but Nate knows her well enough to be able to tell that she’s more nervous than she’s letting on.

Before he can say anything about it, Hardison invites her over to the couch, and she forces Eliot to give up space so she can steal some of Parker’s popcorn and loudly speculate on whether or not the movie they’re watching on mute is secretly about a ghost. Parker rolls her eyes and momentarily flickers just _ slightly _ out of phase with the rest of the world, causing Hardison to scream and almost fall off the couch before Parker loudly exclaims that she had _ no _idea she could do that.

Yeah, they can do this. Nate’s _ sure _ they can do this. What did Sophie say while she was teaching her students to help her pull the perfect con? _ For the first time in my life, I’m exactly where I belong? _That. That’s how he feels watching them. That’s how he’s always felt watching them. He’s sure that’s how he’ll feel when he watches Parker take on her first con from halfway around the world. 

Nate was never a superhero, not really. But when he’s with his team, even though he knows that their current time together is finally drawing to an end… that’s the closest he’s ever felt to being one. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I made it clear that Sophie's "real" name is _not_ her deadname, it's the name that she first chose for herself (whether this is "Laura" or not is up to you). I'm also @augustheart on tumblr and I'm currently overjoyed to have found a way to watch Leverage again without filling my computer with viruses (even if in all honesty it's what the Leverage team would want me to do).


End file.
